In contrast, adolescence is accompanied by a rise of sexual attraction and romantic interest in potential partners Rudman and Glick, Gender role expectations in close heterosexual romantic relationships and dating tend to be distinctly traditional and stereotyped Viki et al.

Benevolent sexism emphasizes the notion and romantic idea that men and women are two parts of a whole Glick and Fiske, b. Previous studies have shown that experiences with romantic relationships relates to supporting benevolent sexist attitudes to a higher extent de Lemus et al. Implicitly, women are continuously being subordinated and gender equality is discouraged by persuading women that protection and love will be granted to them by men if they comply with these traditional and sexist beliefs.

If not, men will have to react with hostile sexist attitudes in order to preserve the status quo de Lemus et al. In sum, we expect adolescents with a romantic partner to support benevolent sexist attitudes to a higher extent than adolescents without a romantic partner.

Based on the literature we do not expect such an association for hostile sexist attitudes. But because benevolent and hostile sexism are related to each other, we study whether being in a romantic relationship relates to a greater support for hostile sexist attitudes. All educational tracks and grades were represented in the sample Bradt et al. In general, respondents were 12 to 18 years old with an average age of The response rates at school level and pupil level were This study did not apply for ethical advice for several reasons.

First, our study did not include any medical treatment and Belgium's national regulations, nor the Vrije Universiteit Brussel oblige ethical approval of the research design. Moreover, in no ethical commission for the humanities existed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, making it impossible to ask for ethical advice for the data collection of this study at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

The latter followed exactly the same principles and practices as the data that were gathered in the data used in this paper. Before respondents were asked whether they would be willing to fill out the questionnaire, they were explained that participation to the study was voluntary and anonymous.

They could stop their participation at any moment without giving any reason and did not have to answer questions that they did not want to answer. Parents who did not want their child to participate in the study, had the opportunity to sign a form stating their child will not take part in the study. These notes were distributed about 2 weeks before the survey took place.

The pupils also received a questionnaire which they could take home for one of their parents to fill out. In our study, only those respondents were selected of whom a parent had also completed a questionnaire and we solely used pupils with a Belgian father, mother and grandmother Belgian native adolescents. We did this because the non-response analysis showed a certain selectivity with regards to social background pupils had to fill out the educational level of the parents and ethnic background.

The response was low and therefore very selective among the latter, which is why we chose to focus on parent-child dyads with a Belgian background. Previous research showed benevolent and hostile sexism works in distinct ways for boys and girls Vandenbossche et al. Therefore, analyses were performed for boys and girls separately. As the intra-class correlation coefficient only showed weak variation at the level of the schools 2 , we performed unilevel regression analyses.

The dependent variables were benevolent sexism BS and hostile sexism HS toward women. Originally the inventory consisted of 22 items measuring hostile and benevolent sexism each 11 items.

Since our data was gathered by means of a school survey consisting of varying questions and subjects, we worked with a reduced scale. Theoretically, the benevolent sexism scale consists of three subscales: heterosexual intimacy a 4 items , protective paternalism b 4 items , and complementary gender differentiation c 3 items.

We selected items of which the pretest of the questionnaire among a small convenience sample indicated that they had the clearest meaning for young adolescents.

Honesty and sincerity have been linked to typical female stereotypes and sexist beliefs Dolan, ; Etchezahar and Ungaretti, Respondents rated four items for each form of sexism on a Likert scale ranging from one totally disagree to five totally agree. Principal components analysis PCA on the four items revealed two components with Eigenvalue above one 1.

The first subscale is composed by the items tapping into protective paternalism and heterosexual intimacy. As a concept, gender essentialism is about the intrinsic qualities that are proposed as natural and fixed. It can be argued that the idea of gender essentialism justifies romantic interdependence. Together, the two subscales thus grasp the idea of benevolent sexism well. We performed our analyses on the composed measure for benevolent sexism and for the two separate subscales.

Item scores were summed and rescaled to a 0— continuum. Parents' moral beliefs were also constructed using a summated scale 0— that goes from totally not acceptable to totally acceptable. We expected pupils' attitudes to be more similar in the same grade rather than in the same year of age, because pupils in the same grade are confronted with similar learning experiences and other events e.

Since the survey did not contain a straightforward question concerning whether the adolescents had a romantic partner or not, we used an alternative question where they were asked to indicate whom they could turn to when needed. Table 1 presents, for boys and girls, the frequencies and mean scores on the separate items of the benevolent and hostile sexism scales.

Girls scored higher on the items tapping into benevolent sexism than boys, while the opposite was found for hostile sexism where the mean scores on the items were higher for boys.

Table 2 presents the mean scores on the BS and HS scales for boys and girls separately. Girls scored only slightly higher on the composed benevolent sexism scale than boys. Girls also scored higher for benevolent sexism through gender interdependence than boys and for benevolent sexism through gender essentialism than boys.

On the other hand, boys clearly scored higher on hostile sexism than girls. Table 1. Frequencies and means for items tapping into benevolent and hostile sexism for boys and girls separately. Table 2. Means for subscales and scales of benevolent and hostile sexism for boys and girls separately. Table 3. Table 4 presents the results of the stepwise forced entry multivariate regression analyses with standardized beta coefficients for benevolent sexism row a , the benevolent sexism through gender interdependence subscale row b and the benevolent sexism through gender essentialism subscale row c for boys and girls separately.

In the first model, we included the socio-economical position of the parent and parents' educational degree, in the second model we added parent's traditional gender and progressive moral beliefs. Next, we added the adolescents' age grade and educational track, and in the final model we introduced whether one had a romantic partner or not 4.

Table 4. For boys, the results showed a clear and significant effect for the parent's progressive moral beliefs for the support of benevolent sexism through gender essentialism and benevolent sexism. Furthermore, the results indicated that the support for gender essentialism, was positively related to boys' age.

This effect disappeared, however, by adding whether boys had a romantic partner or not in the final model. Although the effect was relatively weak and borderline significant, the results indicated that boys with a romantic partner supported gender essentialism to a higher extent than boys without a romantic partner.

The support for gender interdependence showed to be negatively related to parents' educational degree in the first and second model.

This effect disappeared, by adding adolescents' educational track in the third model and final model. Boys enrolled in technical and vocational tracks thus supported gender interdependence to a higher degree than boys enrolled in general and arts tracks. For girls, the first model showed that parents' educational degree was negatively related to benevolent sexism and the gender interdependence subscale.

The strength of the effect decreased in model 2 when the parent's progressive moral beliefs were entered. However, in the final model, a clear and significant effect remained for the gender interdependence subscale. Moreover, the results showed that in the final model, parent's progressive moral beliefs related to girls' benevolent sexist attitudes and their attitudes with regards to gender interdependence.

Furthermore, the results showed that girls' support for benevolent sexism decreased with age. While in model 3 the results showed a significant effect of the parent's traditional gender beliefs in explaining variation in benevolent sexist attitudes for girls, this was no longer the case in the final model when we controlled for having a romantic partner.

However, parents' traditional gender beliefs continued to relate to girls' attitudes with regards to gender essentialism in the final model. Finally, the results showed that for girls; having a romantic partner related to supporting benevolent sexist attitudes, gender interdependence and gender essentialism to a higher extent than boys. For boys, this was only the case for benevolent sexism through gender essentialism. Table 5 presents the results for the same analyses for hostile sexism.

The results were unclear for girls, except in the first and second model where parents' educational degree was negatively related to hostile sexist attitudes. However, this effect fades in the third and final model. No significant effects were found in the final model for girls. For boys similarly to girls , the first model demonstrated that parents' educational degree rather than the parent's socio-economical background related to hostile sexist attitudes.

By adding the parent's traditional gender and progressive moral beliefs in the second model for boys , the effect of parents' educational degree seemed to fade. This indicates that the effect of the educational degree of the parents was channeled by their moral beliefs.

Furthermore, model 3 and especially the final model clearly showed that for boys, the educational track one was enrolled in explained a substantial share of the variance in hostile sexist attitudes. The results indicated that the occurrence of hostile sexist attitudes was higher among boys enrolled in technical and vocational tracks compared to boys enrolled in the general and arts tracks. The gender difference on this point was more modest when compared to benevolent sexism, but the pattern is completely opposite.

Table 5. In general, the results suggest that benevolent sexist attitudes can be explained through their social characteristics for girls but to a much lesser extent for boys. On the contrary, hostile sexist attitudes can be explained through social characteristics for boys, but not so much for girls.

In this paper we studied social differences in the support for hostile and benevolent sexism based on parent child-parent dyads. Based on the different items for benevolent sexism, two subscales were defined, i.

In this section, we discuss the implications of our results and suggest directions for further research. Our data did not allow to make any statements with regards to the causality of the associations, therefore we focused on how they relate to each other. First, our results showed that the educational degrees of the parents cultural status relate more strongly to sexist attitudes than their socio-economic status.

This is in line with the idea that cultural factors have become increasingly important predictors of attitudes in contemporary societies Elchardus, ; de Lange et al. This is also a first indication that sexist attitudes are better interpreted from a socio-cultural framework than from a purely socio-economic one. Continuing on the relevance of parents to understand children's sexist attitudes, our results revealed that for girls, parent's traditional gender beliefs are related to girls' support for gender essentialism.

Parent's traditional gender beliefs are constituted of gender role beliefs that are based on this gender essentialism. It is possible that this emphasis on gender roles affects girls more, because it is more directed to them. Overall, but with exception to gender interdependence for boys and gender essentialism for girls, parent's moral beliefs relate more strongly to children's benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes, than to their traditional gender beliefs. Following Inglehart , , moral beliefs are strongly endowed with cultural and traditional meanings and values with regards to close relationships, while as stated earlier, traditional gender beliefs are more concerned with role expectations toward men and women.

Moral beliefs are constituted by powerful beliefs with regards to normative values and rules and contain less ambiguity when compared to beliefs about traditional gender roles. It is possible that this explains why traditional gender beliefs of parents are less transmitted to adolescents, while moral beliefs about topics like divorce, extramarital sex, homosexuality and abortion are more tangible Meeusen and Boonen, Secondly, while the ascribed social position of adolescents does not seem to relate directly to their sexist attitudes although the parent's attitudes are strongly related to their social position , their own provisionally achieved position i.

Previous research showed differences in sexist attitudes among adolescents of different educational tracks see Vandenbossche et al. This association can be interpreted as a self-reinforcing mechanism. Adolescents following school in vocational and technical tracks often share a similar ascribed social background with regards to parents' educational degrees. Both among parents and children lower educational degrees have been associated with more traditional gender beliefs.

It can be argued that adolescents following school in vocational and technical tracks a priori support sexist attitudes to a higher extent compared to adolescents in general and arts tracks. Being around other adolescents with similar backgrounds and beliefs, may reinforce these beliefs. Moreover, vocational and technical tracks in Flanders are characterized by a strong gender segregation with regards to the gender specific offered courses Van Houtte, However, this cannot solely be explained by these aspects.

Against the background of knowledge societies, the social position and stigma accompanied with the technical and especially vocational tracks in Flanders generate feelings of being looked down on see Spruyt et al. It is possible that they try to compensate for their less advantageous social position which may enhance their motivation to gain social status through gender relations.

Consequently, it is possible that these pupils react to this stigma by adopting hostile sexist attitudes since these are among the attitudes that contrast those promoted by schools.

Furthermore, boys experience negative stereotypes and felt stigma more often than girls Spruyt et al. Finally, our results show that especially for girls, being in a romantic relationship strongly relates to supporting benevolent sexist attitudes to a higher extent compared to girls who are not in a romantic relationship. Since we worked with cross-sectional data, we were unable to test whether this is due to socialization or selection effects, although it is very clear that being in a relationship does strongly relate to girls' benevolent sexist attitudes.

On the one hand, if socialization effects are at play, this would imply that girls' benevolent sexist attitudes are strengthened when being in a romantic relationship. Hammond et al. Of all interrelations, romantic relationships are the most ideal circumstances in which benevolent sexism can prevail and thus not be seen as sexism Barreto and Ellemers, One of the important limitations of this study is that when studying the role of the parents in the transmission of attitudes, the gender of the parent may matter.

However, the data we worked with did not allow us to report reliable results due to the relatively small sub- samples and skewed distribution of the gender of the parent that filled out the questionnaire predominantly mothers. In the literature, different hypotheses exist with regards to the gender of the parent and the influence on their children's attitudes, which is also commonly referred to as parent-child similarity Meeusen and Boonen, Mothers are thought to have more influence in the formation of children's attitudes because they are more involved with their upbringing Jaspers et al.

Another hypothesis is the gender-matching hypothesis which expects daughters to resemble their mothers more than their father and sons to resemble their fathers more than their mothers Nieuwbeerta and Wittebrood, Thus, future research on the intergenerational transmission of gender and sexist attitudes should take both parents into account in order to compare effects of parent's gender.

We were unable to perform such analyses due to a lack of information about both parents. A second limitation related to our data is the indirect way through which we operationalized being in a romantic relationship.

The questionnaire did not present a direct question with regards to the relational status of the adolescents. Therefore, in our analyses we could only distinguish adolescents that considered their partner as someone they could turn to when needed and those who did not. Research should perceive romantic relationships and as such the entire dating world as a crucial study context where sexism can carelessly manifest itself.

Further research should consider different kinds of relationships where more or less traditional gender concepts are at play see Lee et al. Couples should be studied in a longitudinal way by taking into account how sexist attitudes change over the course of a relationship and how similar couples are or become in their attitudes.

They found higher degrees of hostile sexism among boys. This article adds to the literature by showing that for girls, benevolent sexism relates to being in a romantic relationship.

This may also indicate that the development of sexist attitudes peaks when experiencing a romantic relationship, although differently for boys and girls.

On the other hand, it is possible that selection effects are at play. In turn, Bohner et al. It seems as if benevolent sexism, or at least its chivalrous side, is attractive to young adolescent girls. The downside of benevolent sexism, however, is that it is founded on traditional and unequal gender stereotypes that implicitly block gender equality.

Women should be taught to challenge these stereotypes and to perceive romance as something that should not get in the way of pursuing other educational, career, etc.

This article studied adolescents' sexist attitudes from a sociological perspective. The results showed that differences occur in the endorsement of sexist attitudes with regards to adolescent boys' and girls' social characteristics.

In sum, it seems that support for benevolent sexist attitudes was less likely for girls who weren't romantically involved than for girls who were. Girls also supported benevolent sexist attitudes less the older they got. Parents' moral beliefs related to benevolent sexist attitudes for both boys and girls.

Having a parent who thinks divorce, extramarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion are justifiable creates a climate where benevolent sexist attitudes are endorsed to a lesser extent.

This was also the case for boys, with regards to hostile sexist attitudes. The educational track adolescents are enrolled in, related to boys' hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes gender interdependence. With regards to girls' hostile sexist attitudes, no clear results were found.

Based upon the results of this study, we can conclude that social characteristics especially matter to explain the variation in benevolent sexist attitudes among girls and hostile sexist attitudes among boys. In society, we often see prejudices toward a group based on race, sex, religion, culture, and more.

While specific definitions of prejudice given by social scientists often differ, most agree that it involves prejudgments that are usually negative about members of a group. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as gender-normative; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations constitute gender non-conformity.

Hypermasculinity, sociological term denoting exaggerated forms of masculinity, virility, and physicality. Hyperfeminine women believe that. Study after study has shown that men have a higher tolerance for pain than women, according to researchers who seem to be making some progress in figuring out why.

Some dolphins and bats, for example, can hear frequencies up to , Hz. Elephants can hear sounds at 14—16 Hz, while some whales can hear infrasonic sounds as low as 7 Hz.

People of All ages without a hearing impairment should be able to hear the hz. People who engage in ambivalent sexism may vary between seeing women as good, pure, and innocent and seeing them as manipulative or deceitful, depending on the situation.

Some researchers argue that hostile and benevolent sexism support one another as part of a system. Benevolent sexism offers women protection in exchange for them adopting a more subordinate role, while hostile sexism targets those who deviate from this.

This refers to sexism that is entrenched in organizations and institutions, such as :. When policies, procedures, attitudes, or laws create or reinforce sexism, this is institutional sexism. Institutional sexism is widespread. It can be hostile, benevolent, or ambivalent. One of the clearest indicators is the lack of gender diversity among political leaders and business executives. Another indicator is a gender pay gap. This refers to a difference in the average pay that women and men receive for similar work.

In the U. Overall, women earn less than men in almost every occupation. This manifests during interactions with others. It can occur in the workplace, within relationships, among family members, and in interactions with strangers.

Internalized sexism refers to sexist beliefs that a person has about themselves. Usually, a person adopts these beliefs involuntarily as a result of exposure to sexist behavior or the opinions of others. Research suggests that the lower rate of women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics may be due to internalized sexism. Studies have shown that sexist stereotypes affect academic performance.

As many believe that boys are better than girls at math and science, this could cause a lack of confidence. There are many types of sexism. This prejudice and discrimination can be hostile and overt or seemingly benevolent and more subtly harmful. Many countries that consider themselves to be tolerant instead perpetuate a mixture of types, forming a system of ambivalent sexism. All types of sexism are harmful to the health of society.

To stop sexism, it is crucial to understand how it manifests and then to challenge sexist attitudes and practices at all levels — from the internal to the institutional. Toxic masculinity is a term often used to describe the negative aspects of exaggerated, 'traditional' masculine traits.

Learn more here. Sex and gender are different.